Field, Henry William (McKechnie Section 2)

See Section Five for main entry

A few silhouettes painted on card have been seen backed with 'Miers and Field' trade labels of the 1820s. Later examples have been seen backed with the trade labels used by the artist's father, John Field.

In his later years, H. W. Field worked mainly as a frame-maker, but a few silhouettes painted on card, dating from the early 1840s, have been seen. During the 1850s and 1860s many of the frames which he made may have been intended for use by his son for his work as a photographer.

In the entry on H. W. Field in Section Five, the points of difference between his work on ivory and his father's are set out for the guidance of collectors. The differences between their styles of painting silhouettes on card or paper are similar, and can be briefly summarized. On black work, detail outside the main body of the profile is not as precisely painted by H. W. Field as by his father, and there is no hatching on frills and bows. There is a more pronounced 'dip' at the rear termination of the bust-line of H. W. Field's work. On bronzed work, bronzed detail is more sparsely and less expertly applied by H. W. Field than by his father. He does not use gold shading on the necks of women wearing décolleté dresses. The same pronounced 'dip' is seen at the rear of the bust-line as on the black work.

Both father and son, when working at 2 Strand, London, sometimes used yellow paint against greenish or bluish backgrounds. Again, both artists occasionally used a bust-line terminating in a single arc towards the back, completed by a horizontal line towards the front.

Ills. 746-749